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Provisional IRA and the other paramilitary organisations. Organised crime was considered something ephemeral in Garda headquarters; men like Gilligan didn’t rate in the general scheme of things. The Government and the Department of Justice were categorically told there was no organised crime problem in Ireland. This belief filtered into all sections of Irish society and was quoted verbatim by the media at large, with the exception of some individual journalists. There were, of course, some gardaí who could see what was happening. Gilligan’s small stature, devil-may-care attitude and churlishness towards authority didn’t fool them. They were watching a petty thief turn into a master criminal before their eyes. There was no stopping his gang.
    Gilligan expanded his operation to rural areas. By 1985 he felt confident using weapons and extreme violence. Warehouse robberies were no longer his speciality—he targeted mail vans and payroll deliveries. Violence was something the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang had no problem dispensing.
    The Garda found it was near to impossible to combat his criminal operation. Gilligan had so much regard for gardaí and the lengths to which they would go to charge him with a serious offence that he never took the same route twice, discussed crime over the phone or left any piece of evidence that could link him to a crime. He made all the arrangements for the gang so that no one could betray him. If he had to meet someone, he went to them. Under no circumstances did they arrive at his front door. He never held any stolen property at his home in Corduff, and so the Garda knew there was no point in raiding it.
    His extensive connections in the business world were more than willing to allow him to store stolen goods in their warehouses. And because he sold his loot at knockdown prices to ‘reputable businessmen’, he slept assured that his products were laundered into the system fast, making it almost impossible to trace them.
    Even when the Garda did manage to catch him red-handed, he always seemed to find a loophole to beat a charge, as happened in the Nilfisk case.

    There wasn’t a star in the sky when Niall McClory closed the door behind him and locked up his premises. Grey clouds, the type that seem to float in suspended animation over Dublin’s skyline, blotted out the moonlight. Cookstown Industrial Estate was lifeless; the familiar sounds of forklifts and delivery trucks, which normally deafened those working there, were absent. It was 2 January 1986. The managers and factory workers were still on holiday, recuperating from the Christmas and New Year celebrations. It was McClory’s first day back at Nilfisk. He had to return early to take delivery of 850 new vacuum cleaners that had arrived from Germany. What better way to start off the year than with a new delivery, he thought to himself as he walked to his car parked outside the warehouse. He had just got in when he saw a masked man approach wielding a baton.
    ‘Get out of the car,’ yelled his assailant.
    More men suddenly appeared. ‘Open the door. Open the door.’
    McClory was overcome by fear. His assailants had come from nowhere; he had no way of escaping in any case, so he opened the door.
    ‘Get down on the floor. If you don’t co-operate we’ll shoot you. Do you understand?’
    He could not see a weapon, but fearing they had a gun and would shoot him dead, he obeyed the command. One of the gang handcuffed his hands behind his back and the factory’s security man was forced to lie in a similar position. They were made to look down. The next few hours seemed never-ending and the atmosphere was tense as the two hostages wondered if they would be freed. Wearing a balaclava, Gilligan stood with a two-way radio clenched in one hand, shouting instructions to the others. ‘Send in the truck.’
    From his position, McClory could hear a truck arriving and the sound of the factory’s forklift starting up, then reversing and moving